Reality TV News - February 2004

February 29, 2004An African religion advocacy group has sued the broadcasters and producers of the Scifi Channel's upcoming Mad Mad House reality show, alleging that the show "demeans and misrepresents the voodoo religion."

February 29, 2004MTV has announced that the third season of Making the Band 2 will premiere on Thursday, March 4th at 10 PM ET/PT. The show will continue to follow the six members of the now established hip-hop group Da Band as they move into P. Diddy's luxury apartment on New York City's Upper East Side and work at taking their careers to the next level under P. Diddy's tight supervision. The Making the Band 2 premiere will kick-off with a Sunday marathon of past episodes beginning on February 29th at 1 PM ET/PT.

February 28, 2004In a move that surprised no one who had been paying attention, the struggling ABC network announced Friday that Super Millionaire the super charged version of the original Who Wants to Be a Millionaire hit series that aired as a February Sweeps "event," will return for the upcoming May Sweeps period. Regis Philbin will return as host of the program.

February 28, 2004Despite airing against not only the usual Friends final season episode but also versus ABC's live broadcast of its The Bachelor: After The Final Rose special, the fifth episode of CBS' Survivor: All-Stars delivered more than 22 million viewers for its fourth consecutive week.

February 28, 2004Confirming earlier reports, MTV, Bunim-Murray Productions and the Greater Philadelphia Film Office have officially announced that the network will go into production on The Real World Philadelphia beginning in Spring '04.

February 27, 2004Well after nearly four years worth of comments about how badly he wanted to "snuff Richard's torch" (get your minds out of the gutter people), Survivor host Jeff Probst finally got his wish. Hope it was worth the wait Jeff.

February 26, 2004Stating she preferred "passion" over "stability," Meredith Phillips chose former New York investment banker and current vagabond Ian McKee over Texas pharmaceutical salesman Matthew Hickl during last evening's finale of the second season of ABC's The Bachelorette.

February 26, 2004Last night in a dramatic results show, it was announced that La Toya London from Oakland, CA and Amy Adams from Bakersfield, CA were chosen by America to become the next two contestants to make the Top 12 on American Idol.

February 25, 2004Who needs Donald Trump and his measly $250,000 one year Apprentice employment contract when there's someone like maverick Internet billionaire Mark Cuban around? ABC has announced plans for a six-episode The Benefactor series, during which Cuban has agreed to give away $1,000,000 to a lucky person of his choosing -- simply because he can.

February 25, 2004Last week's penultimate episode of ABC's second edition of The Bachelorette drew 11.33 million overall viewers and a 5.1/12 rating/share in the Adults 18-49 demographic, a performance that ranked it as the network's third most watched program of the week (behind Sunday's Super Millionaire premiere and a special Monday February 16 edition of Primetime).

February 25, 2004So much for American Idol 3's squeaky-clean semi-finalist contestants reputation. After getting halfway through the semi-finals round without a single contestant begin booted due to legal or moral issues, Idol hopeful Donnie Williams was arrested this week for driving drunk and speeding at 100 MPH while returning home from a party thrown in his honor.

February 24, 2004The big fat following of FOX's My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance can revisit the saga of Randi and Steve, from their tense wedding preparations to the climactic wedding ceremony, when the network airs encore broadcasts of last two episodes of the unscripted relationship series back-to-back on Thursday, February 26 (8-9 PM and 9-10 PM ET/PT).

February 24, 2004FOX's six-episode My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance series capped off its great ratings run by drawing its big ratings yet during its finale and powering FOX to a win in the Adult 18-49 demographics for the evening.

February 24, 2004In announcing the return of Super Millionaire, ABC went out of its way to make it clear that the program was only coming back as a week-long special edition February Sweeps programming event, however if the initial premiere ratings are any indication, the struggling network might have no choice but to rethink those plans.

February 23, 2004The six straight men who sued to prevent the broadcast of an UK reality show in which, unbeknownst to them, they competed for the affection of a preoperative Mexican transsexual quickly got over their claims of injury and public humiliation in return for a cash payment, clearing the way for the program to debut on UK television last evening.

February 23, 2004Mark Burnett, Sylvester Stallone, and Dreamworks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg have announced that they are teaming up for a new reality boxing series called (what else) The Contender.

February 22, 2004Despite the fact that for the second week in a row CBS' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation drew over 30 million viewers with a performance that's expected to once again place it as the week's top ranked program, NBC's The Apprentice still managed to draw near series-high Adults 18-49 ratings and achieve the network's best regular programming performance in the time period since September 2002.

February 22, 2004The Friends farewell tour might be in full swing, but the All-Stars edition of CBS' Survivor is continuing to show that it's more than capable of holding its own versus the final episodes of the legendary NBC comedy.

February 22, 2004ABC's regular series premiere of its new Extreme Makeover: Home Edition home makeover series recruited Sunday night viewers to the network in numbers not seen in a year, leading its lead-out Alias to its highest young women ratings for the season and placing Makeover as the network's third highest rated program for the week ending February 15.

February 21, 2004In a surprising development, the struggling ABC Network has let its option for future installments of its The Mole reality franchise expire, making the program a "free agent" eligible to be picked up by other broadcast networks.

February 20, 2004FOX has pulled the wraps off of its new upcoming Forever Eden series and revealed the identities of the eleven initial contestants that will take an indefinite break from their friends, families, jobs and everyday lives to find out just how long they can survive in what they think will be the most desirable, blissful existence imaginable.

February 20, 2004Regardless of how else he fares, Richard Hatch can once again breath easy. After his completely unimpressive showing in Survivor: All-Stars, no longer will anyone be daring to claim that Rob Cesternino was the best strategist to ever play the game.. Charged with being both a threat to their future gameplay and a lazy contributor to camp life, Rob C. was unable to survive Chapera's first tribal council and was voted off unanimously by the rest of his tribe.

February 19, 2004Last night in a dramatic results show, it was announced that Camile Velasco from Haiku, Maui, HI, and Matthew Rogers from Rancho Cucamonga, CA, were chosen by America to become the next two contestants to make the Top 12 on American Idol.

February 19, 2004Capping off six episodes of mole searching, supermodel/actress Angie Everhart was revealed as The Mole, and former NBA basketball badboy Dennis Rodman was the lucky winner of $222,000, on the season finale of Celebrity Mole Yucatan which aired Wednesday, February 18, on the ABC Television Network.

February 18, 2004Don't look now, but after initially premiering to ratings figures that were significantly below those of the six-episode first edition of the series, NBC's nine-episode Average Joe 2: Hawaii is now drawing numbers that are greater than all but the last two episodes of the original series.

February 18, 2004The Bachelor producer Mike Fleiss is going to be a busy man the next several months. Only days after CBS announced that it had picked up his previously stalled The Will series, The WB has announced that it has picked up a new reality relationship show dubbed Big Man on Campus from Fleiss.

February 18, 2004The Scifi Channel will debut what's probably the spookiest (and certainly among the freakiest) American reality shows ever seen when Mad Mad House premieres on Thursday, March 4 at 9 PM ET/PT as part of the network's new Thursday original programming lineup.

February 18, 2004With a platinum debut album and a Grammy nomination under his belt, Ruben Studdard, the winner of last year's American Idol competition, says he's now ready to take his Soulful sound on the road.

February 17, 2004NBC's Fear Factor set series ratings records last evening as the series' seven-episode couples competition came to an end with engaged couple Chris Jackson and Monica Gonzales of Bedford, Texas winning the program's $1,000,000 prize.

February 16, 2004Showtime cable channel, whose previous forays into reality television have included last fall's Freshman Diaries and the adult entertainment industry centered Family Business, has announced that it has ordered a pilot for Make It Cool, a new Queer Eye For The Straight Guy-like reality series in which a group of "hip African-Americans" will help horrifically "uncool" people of all races overcome their "uncoolness."

February 16, 2004After watching last year's initial broadcast of The Family bomb in the ratings, get pulled from the airwaves, and be burned off as late summer filler programming, it's certainly no surprise that ABC decided to not follow through with its previously announced plans to air The Will, another incredibly similar sounding "an extended family competes for a huge prize" reality show. The only surprise is that for some reason, CBS, which has positioned itself as the "gold standard" of reality programming (The Amazing Race, Big Brother, Survivor), has opted to pick up the Mike Fleiss (The Bachelor) series after ABC (over a year later) decided to pass on it.

February 13, 2004NBC's celebrity-filled second supersized episode of The Apprentice once again delivered a ratings performance that should place it just outside the Top 10 in the week's Nielsen rankings, however clearly it's having little impact on CBS competitor CSI, as last night's CSI episode was the most watched regularly scheduled broadcast on any network this season.

February 13, 2004Phoebe might have gotten married on a supersized Friends and The Apprentice might have gotten an early jump on its charity auction, but CBS' emotion-filled third episode of Survivor: All-Stars still held up well in the ratings.

February 13, 2004Millions of viewers tuned into the third episode of Survivor All-Stars expecting to see more of the bickering and difficult living conditions that have marked the first two episodes of the series -- only to discover that their normal CBS Survivor broadcast had been secretly replaced with FOX's When Animals Attack, a Gilligan's Island edition of TBS' House Rules, and capped off with a heart-tugging Lifetime movie segment.

February 12, 2004Last night in a dramatic results show, it was announced that Fantasia Barrino from Highpoint, NC and Diana DeGarmo from Snellville, GA were chosen by America to become the first two contestants to make the Top 12 on American Idol.

February 12, 2004While operating a restaurant that appears on national television might be fun for Rocco Dispirito, according to his partners in the "Rocco's 22nd St." restaurant which appears on NBC's The Restaurant reality show, its been disastrous from a financial standpoint -- and chef Rocco is to blame.

February 12, 2004As expected, even with a direct lead-in from a supersized Friends broadcast, NBC's The Apprentice found its first head-to-head competition with an original episode of CBS' CSI a bit more difficult than the previous week'sCSI repeat episode matchup.

February 11, 2004"Tragedy Strikes As The S.S.Gold Sinks Straight Down To The Bottom," our episode summary for the fifth episode of ABC's Celebrity Mole Yucatan, written by EmeraldBrooch, has now been posted.

February 10, 2004A couple of weeks after Paris Hilton already revealed the second season's premise and Bunim-Murray announced upcoming casting calls, FOX has finally gotten around to announcing one of the worst kept "secrets" in Hollywood -- that Paris and Nicole Richie's The Simple Life will return for a second season.

February 10, 2004Several weeks have past since the last Paris Hilton sex tape-related lawsuit was filed, so clearly it was time for a new lawsuit in the real-life continuing saga of sex, lies, and videotape.

February 10, 2004As part of its rebranding strategy that includes the addition of more reality-focused programming, the Game Show Network, now known as just GSN, has announced that it has acquired the rebroadcast rights to the first three editions of ABC's The Mole reality series.

February 10, 2004Borrowing a page from CBS' Survivor, ABC has announced that for the first time in Bachelor franchise history, it will air a live broadcast of its upcoming The Bachelorette: After the Final Rose reunion show.

February 9, 2004When a newly re-branded network's first take at an original series of its own draws record ratings, you'd pretty much expect that the decision to bring it back for a second season would be an easy decision, but apparently that didn't stop Spike TV from waiting over three months to formally announce that it had ordered a second season of its The Joe Schmo Show series.

February 9, 2004FOX has announced that Forever Eden, its new series that's breaking ground as American television's first "open-ended unscripted soap opera," will debut in a two-part premiere event immediately following American Idol on Monday, March 1 and Tuesday, March 2 at 9-10 PM ET/PT.

February 9, 2004TBS Superstation has announced that is is teaming up with reality show producer Bruce Nash (For Love Or Money, Meet My Folks) for a new, currently-casting, prime time reality dating series that will premiere June 22, 2004. According to TBS, the still-untitled hour-long series will "combine the search for love with fantastic adventure."

February 9, 2004ABC has announced that Super Millionaire, the new and "amped up" version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, will open its contestant qualification round on Monday, February 16. Regis Philbin will host the series of one-hour specials that offers $10 million as the top prize.

February 8, 2004In the latest development in the Paris Hilton sex tape scandal, according Hilton family lawyers, Rick Salomon, the ex-paramour featured in the now notorious film with Hilton, has offered to drop his $10 million defamation lawsuit against the Hilton family in return for the rights to distribute the film on a "pay-per-view basis." For his part, Soloman's lawyer denies that any such offer was made, terming the allegation "an absolute fabrication."

February 8, 2004During the weeks leading up to last week's Survivor: All-Stars premiere, executive producer Mark Burnett touted the series as his "blockbuster" -- and if the early ratings are any indication anything, it appears as though he was right.

February 6, 2004In a move that surprised few, NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker announced yesterday that the network's new hit reality show The Apprentice will return for a second season and began accepting applications for the new edition.

February 5, 2004The third season of American Idol is officially under way, as the preliminary auditions ended and the program's Top 32 semifinalists were revealed last night. Next week, eight of the semifinalists will perform and the viewers will vote for their favorites, beginning the process in which America will decide who will be the next American Idol.

February 4, 2004ESPN has announced the twelve finalists for its new reality series, Dream Job, in which contestants will compete for a one-year, contract to be a SportsCenter anchor. Hosted by ESPN anchor Stuart Scott, Dream Job will debut from New York Sunday, February 22 at 10 PM ET on ESPN. Shot live in front of a studio audience, the hour-long program will be aired six consecutive Sundays at 10 PM with the two-hour finale on March 28 at 9 PM.

February 3, 2004Just when you thought FOX had set the reality TV bar about as low as it could go with such upcoming shows as The Littlest Groom and Playing It Straight, along comes UPN to demonstrate that the bar can go even lower.

February 3, 2004FOX has announced that The Swan, the previously reported unscripted series that seeks to mirror the classic fairy tale and aim to transform "ugly duckling" women into "beautiful swans," will premiere on Monday, March 29 at 9 PM ET/PT.

February 3, 2004Airing for the first time in its new 9PM ET/PT timeslot directly versus a repeat episode of CBS' CSI, the fourth episode of NBC's The Apprentice rebounded significantly from the series-low ratings that it had delivered when airing head-to-head versus FOX's American Idol the previous week.

February 3, 2004Bunim-Murray Productions, the producers of FOX's hit The Simple Life reality series, have announced that they will soon begin open casting calls looking for families that are willing to host Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie during their Simple Life 2 road trip.

February 3, 2004FOX is shaping up to have quite a Spring 2004 lineup. Leaving no doubt that they are equal-opportunity offenders, having already gone after the fat and soon the little, FOX has now announced plans to complete their trifecta and go after the gay with its own twisted backwards take on Bravo's previous Boy Meets Boy reality show. And to add insult to injury, they're going to be doing it on Friday nights -- the reality TV kiss of death.

February 2, 2004Despite a long-running Super Bowl game that resulted in CBS' post-game broadcast of its Survivor: All-Stars premiere not beginning until nearly 11 PM ET, the program still managed to achieve ratings levels that it had not reached since the finale of 2001's Survivor: The Australian Outback and instantly become the highest ratest entertainment broadcast of the 2003-2004 television season.

February 2, 2004"Do You Have a Personality? (and will it work against you?)" -- our episode summary for the third episode of ABC's second edition of The Bachelorette, written by LeftPinky, is now available.

February 2, 2004If you weren't one of last night's many millions of viewers who watched the post-Super Bowl premiere of Survivor: All-Stars, then another opportunity awaits. CBS has announced that it will rebroadcast the premiere episode of Survivor: All-Stars on Tuesday, February 3 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT).

February 2, 2004Wasting no time in putting what was no doubt their long-anticipated "boot the previous winners" strategy into action, during the premiere of CBS' Survivor: All-Stars, the four non-ultimate Survivor members of the losing Saboga tribe voted to boot Tina Wesson, the 42-year-old winner of Survivor: The Australian Outback, from the game.

February 2, 2004On the heels of Tuesday's record-breaking ratings, which placed UPN first at 9 PM ET/PT in the Women 18-34 demographic and second among Adults 18-34, UPN has announced that it has ordered not one but two more seasons of Tyra Banks' America's Next Top Model hit reality series.